Material Cultures Lab

The Department of Anthropology's Material Cultures Lab contains various secular and religious objects and artworks gathered during ethnographic fieldwork by Guérin C. Montilus, Ph.D., from Benin, Nigeria, Haiti, Cuba, and Brazil, among others. The lab is dedicated to illustrating concepts, theories, and studies of cultural anthropology (as well as archaeology and linguistics) in the arts and social life including symbolism, myths, rituals, spirituality, magic, witchcraft, sorcery, syncretism, healing and shamanism.

Our lab enhances the learning experience of students, promotes scholarship, stimulates theoretical discussion and provides an anthropological explanation with an ethnological foundation. Through these objects, students and scholars are exposed to fieldwork data, which embody the mental constructs and daily practices of people in various cultures. The objects convey the emic discourses of natives making the lab a living institution of communicative language within the anthropology department.

Material Cultures Lab holdings include paintings, wood sculptures and furniture, brass figures, musical instruments, appliqué, weavings, copper plaques and ceremonial objects demonstrating the use of material culture in the secular and religious lives of the cultures represented.

Location and access

Access is available by appointment.

• Department of Anthropology: 3312 Faculty/Administration Building (FAB)
• 313-577-2935 | anthropology@wayne.edu